Consider us shocked. Justin Baldoni's countersuit, which his lawyer Bryan Freedman hyped days ago, claiming it would "shock everyone," was made public today via Variety. But no one is more shocked than The New York Times, which Baldoni, producers Steve Serowitz and Jamey Heath, and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel are suing for $250 million for libel, false light invasion of privacy, promissory fraud, and break of implied-in-fact contract. The suit surrounds the 4,000-word bombshell story published by the Times alleging that Baldoni and his publicists had orchestrated a smear campaign against Blake Lively following Lively's filing of a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department against Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment.
Almost simultaneously, Blake Lively reportedly filed a formal lawsuit against Baldoni. Per Page Six, her lawsuit, which has yet to be made public, reflects the complaints in her filing last week. Lively's suit accuses Baldoni of sexually harassing her on set and hiring a crisis PR firm to destroy her reputation.
"Earlier today, Ms. Lively filed a federal complaint against Wayfarer Studios and others in the Southern District of New York," her attorneys said in a statement. "Ms. Lively previously sent her California Civil Rights Department Complaint in response to the retaliatory campaign Wayfarer launched against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns. Unfortunately, Ms. Lively's decision to speak out has resulted in further retaliation and attacks. As alleged in Ms. Lively's federal Complaint, Wayfarer and its associates have violated federal and California state law by retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns. Now, the defendants will answer for their conduct in federal court."
Baldoni's suit accuses the Times of cherry-picking correspondence between Lively and Baldoni to strip "necessary context" from communications "deliberately spliced to mislead." The lawsuit features numerous diagrams laying out the context the Times did not publish, some of which shows contradictions in the Times reporting. In the complaint, Baldoni's lawyers argue that the narrative surrounding the production of It Ends With Us' had been flipped in favor of Lively, whom the plaintiffs accuse of engaging in "cynical abuse of sexual harassment allegations to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production."
This latest chapter in the It Ends With Us controversy follows a previous lawsuit filed by Baldoni's former publicist, Stephanie Jones, against Abel. Baldoni's complaint includes her, too, claiming she was a "critical player in this manufactured controversy." The complaint seemingly confirms the widespread belief that Jones provided Lively with text messages regarding the alleged smear campaign.
Perhaps Baldoni's camp was too hasty because the complaint also criticizes Lively's decision not to file a lawsuit. By filing with the Civil Rights Department and not the courts, the Plaintiffs believe Lively was protecting herself from "the scrutiny of the discovery process, including answering questions under oath and producing her communications." We suppose she's no longer shielded from such scrutiny and will see them in court.
